Guest post series - 'Filohax' No. 26 - Paul

Thanks very much again to Paul for this next instalment of his wonderful guest post series. This one is about Commonplace books and how Filofax can enhance the practice.  
You can find all of the 'Filohax' posts here. 

Zibaldone zone 

Before I started Commonplacing (look it up - there are a million YouTube videos!), I didn't have a place for the random facts / quotes / passions and interests I've collected over the years.  

My scrapbooks / bookshelves were bursting with disparate 'stuff' (I'm a bit of a hoarder). Then one day the algorithm got me - and I was hooked. Here was a reason to use my Filofax collection everyday - a Commonplace book I started simply, I used a Gloucester personal I had spare, chosen due to its lack of a strap closure - I figured that my commonplace book would be a reference book and not for carrying around. Next, I decided to look through my existing collection of information and to create a series of categories to help with the retrieval process later on.

 

"But if this is about Commonplace books; what is a Zibaldone?" I hear you thinking. Well, Zibaldone is an associated word which I think comes from the Italian for 'a mix of things' (the commonplace police will shoot me for this!). So when I started, as you'll see from the first few photos of my inserts I titled them 'Compendium' (yet another word, I wanted to do it my way ). However, I use the Filofax A-Z dividers and my 'C' section was already very full - pushing my core content away from the sweet spot middle of the binder. My simple solution was to rebrand as 'Zibaldone' - my 'Z' tab being redundant at that point!

 

I've recently started on my second Zibaldone Filofax (another black Gloucester) and this got me wondering how to differentiate between the different books. I'm not getting into on shelf numbering systems yet (that day will come), but for now I've created a page turner which will contain the short form title 'ZIB' but with the graphic twist of using a number one instead of the letter 'i'... the plan being that once this graphic device is established in the first Zibaldone the second will be 'Z2B', Z3B, etc (I already use the same device in my index binder ).

Anyway, on to my inserts system. As you will see from the first few pages, I incorporated quite a wide column for 'categories'. You'll also see that this lasted all of three pages before I opted for a colour coding system - I was wasting too much real estate that a personal insert doesn't have to spare. I made my commonplace for myself - my logic being that as I get older I'm starting to think about downsizing, and a Commonplace is a kind of condensed library - if there was ever a fire I want to reach for a a few commonplace books, not my whole library! The other audience I had in mind are my two sons. Historically commonplace books were handed down through families, and I like the idea of carrying on this tradition - especially as we accelerate into the Artificial intelligence era - I want them to have something personally curated by myself, for them to have an insight into the old man's interests.

As the initial pages I created progress you can see that the contents are very text based, but one day I was re reading a very old and beloved book of Ornithology - AA book of British Birds, and the beautiful illustrations by artist Raymond Harris Ching inspired me to cherry pick my favourite birds/illustrations and photo copy them, reducing to fit the smaller personal insert format. This got me wondering, why don't I use my Zibaldone to not only house quotations and text based information but art and illustrative inspiration too?

The benefits of Commonplacing are well documented, but what I don't think many are aware of is how using a ring binder can allow you to juxtapose content ad infinitum, creating new relationships between content that may never have been considered before (I'm almost starting to get 'Zettelkasten' vibes.. another story!). 

In the coming weeks I aim to share a spread with the group every so often and would love to inspire others to have a go themselves - and maybe share their own Commonplacing?